Different
by ReganX
Summary: Being different can be both a blessing and a curse. Complete.
1. Part I: Shalimar

Disclaimer: 'Mutant X' and all of its characters belong to someone who isn't me.  
  
*  
  
Part I: Shalimar  
  
She is always quiet.  
  
Too quiet for a five year old.  
  
She sits alone in the big classroom, seemingly oblivious to the chatter and laughter of the children around her.  
  
They never ask her to join their games.  
  
The teacher is worried about her. In the seven years that she has been teaching kindergarten, she has never encountered a child like this little girl, whose deep brown eyes seem to hold a thousand years of sorrow.  
  
No child should have such eyes.  
  
Her father's eyes are the same brown, like black coffee or dark chocolate. Hard and cold, they follow his daughter's every movement, like an eagle circling his prey, ready to pounce on her if she misbehaves. He always stays in the classroom after all the other parents have left, sometimes for only a few minutes, sometimes for as long as half an hour or more.  
  
He never speaks.  
  
He just watches her.  
  
She listens carefully to any instructions the teacher gives her and follows them to the letter. She applies herself diligently to her work, her parents have already taught her to read and write, which places her ahead of her envious classmates. She spends hours poring over her meticulous schoolwork, determined to be perfect.  
  
She is rarely satisfied with her efforts.  
  
She is always immaculately dressed, perhaps a little too formally for school, in pretty white or pastel dresses, with white shoes and white lacy socks, a matching ribbon, tied in an elaborate bow, in her long blond hair.  
  
She reminds her teacher of an illustration in an old-fashioned children's book.  
  
Behind the carefully cultivated image of the perfect little girl, however, lies a spark of fire, which she always desperately tries to hide.  
  
On her first day, one of her classmates, a rather chunky little boy who fancied himself to be a tough guy, the leader in class, teased her and pulled her hair, eliciting a scream of pain.  
  
His mocking laughter was quickly cut short when she flew at him with an almost animalistic snarl, scratching his face and punching him, knocking him off his feet.  
  
The sunlight streaming through the windows of the classroom must have been reflected in her eyes; for an instant, the teacher could have sworn that she saw them lit up with a golden fire.  
  
Her father pulled her away, carrying her, still kicking and fighting, out of the room.  
  
For a few minutes, the sound of his angry raised voice drowned out the other sounds in the classroom although nobody could make out his words.  
  
Once she returned, the other children avoided her.  
  
Since that day, her classmates have kept their distance, as if she were the carrier of a horrible, unknown disease. An invisible circle has been drawn around her, isolating her, defining her as an outsider, as different. Nobody is willing to break through that circle.  
  
She spends most of her time gazing out the window, her eyes unfocused and dreaming, as if she can see something beyond the concrete playground and the weed-filled sports field.  
  
If her teacher asks, she will participate in class activities, but without enthusiasm. She always sits apart, away from the other children.  
  
The pictures she draws are always dark.  
  
END PART I.  
  
*  
  
Author's Note: I am not sure how to classify this piece. All (serious) suggestions are welcome, as are reviews. No flames, please. 


	2. Part II: Jesse

Disclaimer: See Part I.  
  
*  
  
Part II: Jesse  
  
He only ever eats dinner with his parents on Sundays, the rest of the week; he is relegated to the kitchen. Rather than being disappointed at this restriction, he finds it a relief.  
  
Sunday dinners are eaten in the uncomfortable, stiffly formal dining room, served by silent retainers. His parents converse together from either end of the table, occasionally addressing him.  
  
Most of their remarks are either criticisms of his table manners or conduct, or banal, impersonal enquiries about his day. Sometimes they are reduced to speaking about the weather.  
  
On the other days of the week, his parents' conversation, while more animated, is never pleasant for him to hear.  
  
From his hiding place under the table in the hall outside the dining room, shrouded by the heavy embroidered white cloth, he can hear the cool, polished voices as clearly as if he was in the room with him.  
  
"It's starting to get worse. I cannot touch him any more. My hand passes straight through him."  
  
"I had a call from his school today." He can picture his mother's lips pursing in displeasure. "There was a fight. He broke another boy's nose. His teacher said that he would have had to have been made of stone to do so much damage."  
  
"I don't know what we are to do with him." His father's irritation is evident in his tone. "These. . ." There was a brief pause as he selected the appropriate word. ". . .changes are growing more frequent as he gets older."  
  
"He's only a child!" His mother's alarm was plain. "He is already a problem. What will he be like when he is an adult?"  
  
He crawls out of his hiding place and slips away, as silently as a ghost, tiptoeing up to his room.  
  
A child!  
  
He is not a child!  
  
His birthday will be next month. He will be eight. He will soon be too old for them to treat him as a little boy.  
  
He hates that he disappoints his parents. He hates not being able to control his body, which shifts from being as intangible as mist to as solid as a rock. He does not know how.  
  
His parents have forbidden him to talk about these 'changes', as they call him, but it always feels as if the servants and his classmates know, without having to be told, that there is something different about him.  
  
They avoid him.  
  
His parents avoid him.  
  
They do not have a name for what happens to him. They refuse to talk to him about it. They prefer to ignore it and him.  
  
He often contemplates running away, to find some place where nobody will stare at him, whisper things about him behind his back. He wonders if there are other children like him, who are different. He would like to find them.  
  
He will soon be old enough to leave.  
  
He is almost eight.  
  
He is almost an adult.  
  
END PART II.  
  
*  
  
Author's Note: I hope to be able to update soon, I plan to write about Emma, Brennan and Adam (probably in that order) as well. 


	3. Part III: Emma

Disclaimer: See Part I.  
  
*  
  
Part III: Emma.  
  
Our special little girl.  
  
A miracle baby.  
  
A gift from above.  
  
A sign.  
  
People have spoken like that about her for as long as she can remember, first her parents, later their friends, the members of her circle.  
  
Small for her age, yet glowing with health and infant beauty, her smiling face, framed by her short, reddish-brown curls, has often appeared on the front page of the group's newsletter, a symbol both of childish innocence and of hope for the future.  
  
She follows her parents around the country, marching in parades in support of whatever their latest cause is.  
  
Save the Rainforests.  
  
Protect the Animals.  
  
March for Peace.  
  
End Nuclear Warfare.  
  
She has lent her support to all of them, without ever fully understanding what the slogan she chants mean.  
  
Most of the time, it's a lot of fun and she quite enjoys the attention she receives as the group's unofficial mascot.  
  
The attention she gets for her abilities - her special gifts, her mother calls them - is less welcome.  
  
Most of the members of the group speak of times when, in her presence, they have felt a surge of great joy, of hope, of love, emanating from her.  
  
They consider her to be almost semi-divine, a tiny angel sent to guide them, to keep their spirits high and their cause strong.  
  
They expect her to be an infant Messiah, to heal the world.  
  
It is too great a burden for any child to bear.  
  
She hates them for laying it upon her and feels guilty for being unable to meet their expectations, for letting them down.  
  
Not even her parents can understand how their usually sunny little girl can suddenly break down into uncontrollable sobs, shout in rage or scream in fear, without any visible provocation.  
  
They do not understand that she feels the emotions of those around her as deeply - perhaps even more so - as they do.  
  
The onslaught of feelings overwhelms her. This aspect of her abilities frightens her. It is the aspect over which she exercises the least control.  
  
It is worse when she is in a large crowd, when she attends their rallies, for example. The surge of emotions; love and hate, anger and excitement, joy and sorrow, even some emotions that she cannot put a name to, assault her like a physical force, attacking her mind over and over again.  
  
She is unable to shut them out.  
  
At times it feels as if her mind is not her own.  
  
She dreams of escape sometimes, of finding a remote spot, perhaps in the forests she campaigns to protect, and living alone, away from other people and their turbulent emotions.  
  
She is never alone.  
  
Around her, people are shouting out words she doesn't understand.  
  
They are angry about something.  
  
They make her experience their anger as well.  
  
She turns around to reach for her mother's hand, to plead with her to leave. All these people are giving her a headache.  
  
Her mother is not there.  
  
She cannot see her father either, or any familiar face. They must have moved away, not noticing that she did not follow them.  
  
This is her chance. She can slip away. Nobody will notice her. She can be gone before her parents know it.  
  
Her parents.  
  
She hesitates. She knows how deeply her parents love her. She does not need her abilities to feel it. If she leaves, she knows that they will be devastated.  
  
She feels her last chance of escape slipping away as she reaches out with her mind, searching for her parents.  
  
'I'm here.' Her mind cries out to theirs. 'Come and find me.'  
  
She hates herself for not having the courage to leave when she had the opportunity.  
  
Before she has a chance to change her mind, the sound of footsteps heralds their arrival.  
  
"Emma!" She is caught into her mother's arms. "Thank God we found you!"  
  
Her chance is gone.  
  
She will never be able to escape now. 


	4. Part IV: Brennan

Disclaimer: See Part I.  
  
*  
  
Part IV: Brennan.  
  
When they were younger, his friends had thought that his powers were cool.  
  
When he was nearly seven, on the first day of the first grade, the class bully, a heavily built eight year old who was repeating the year - and was not happy about it - had made the mistake of trying to intimidate him into giving up his lunch money.  
  
He had received an electric shock in lieu of cash.  
  
From that moment he had been welcomed into the infamous 'Mike's gang', the terror of first and second graders alike. The gang's members were, he had been informed, the coolest kids in the school.  
  
It was a novelty for him to be accepted rather than shunned because of his abilities, which his grandmother had once told him were the devil's work, and he revelled in the attention and praise he was receiving.  
  
For three years now, he had aided the gang in some of their most original pranks - his favourite was to have him charge the teacher's pens so that she received a shock every time her skin came in contact with the metal cover - and since those in authority had no idea of his abilities and wouldn't have believed it if they had been told, they got away with a great deal, including shorting the power circuitry on several occasions, with the happy result that school was dismissed early while repairmen were called.  
  
The gang had accepted his abilities without question from the beginning and continued to do so until the fourth grade, when everything had changed.  
  
At first, his friends had grown more distant. They met up without including him and on one or two occasions, he hadn't been let in on the plan for their latest practical joke - booby-trapping the desks with shaving cream and water balloons - and he had fallen victim to it like everyone else.  
  
The hurt he had felt then was nothing to how he felt later.  
  
"We don't want you in our gang anymore."  
  
"Yeah, that stuff you do is weird!"  
  
"It's not normal!"  
  
"We don't want to hang out with you anymore."  
  
"You're a freak!"  
  
He felt hurt and betrayed.  
  
His friends, the first people to accept him, didn't want him around anymore.  
  
He was different.  
  
They didn't want to be friend with a freak.  
  
He'd show them what a freak could do!  
  
He and his friends had often discussed, in great length, the perfect prank.  
  
He would do it without them, show them what it felt like to be left out.  
  
Between classes, the school parking lot was always devoid of people.  
  
That was when he would strike.  
  
"What the hell!" he felt a surge of pride as he heard the bewilderment in the principal's voice, audible from the parking lot even within the classroom.  
  
Teachers and children alike crowded around the window, mouths open with amazement.  
  
Roughly twenty or so cars, belonging to the staff at the school had been driven into a tightly knit circular formation, bumper to bumper, dangerously close together.  
  
It would take hours to sort everything out.  
  
He grinned inwardly at the look of utter bewilderment on the principal's face as he tried to figure out how on Earth someone had been able to move locked, alarmed cars like that.  
  
He and the gang knew the answer.  
  
He could feel the gazes of his former friends on him and knew without looking that they were full of admiration.  
  
They would be willing to welcome him back into the gang now.  
  
Screw them!  
  
He didn't need them anymore.  
  
*  
  
Author's Note: I know that the style for this is a bit different from the style of the previous chapters, but I don't know  
much about Brennan's early life.  
  
I was inspired by the episode 'Crime of the New Century'.  
  
Brennan: When I was ten I could barely jumpstart a car battery. 


	5. Part V: Adam

Disclaimer: See Part I.  
  
Author's Note: I'd like to thank everybody who reviewed 'Different'. Your encouragement meant a lot. Thanks, guys.  
  
Words in / / = Thoughts.  
  
Words in * * = Italics.  
  
*  
  
Part V: Adam.  
  
"Geek!"  
  
"Nerd!"  
  
"Loser!"  
  
"Freak!"  
  
He runs this gauntlet every day but it is always just as difficult as it was the first time.  
  
Mocking faces, like leering gargoyles, line up by the lockers on either side of the hallway, chanting their insults, relishing in the look of pain on his face.  
  
At first sight, you can tell that he is out of place.  
  
He's different.  
  
They know it.  
  
They hate him for it.  
  
At not quite thirteen, he is the youngest pupil in the high school, at least four or five years younger than most of his classmates.  
  
They revile him for his youth.  
  
/Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me./  
  
His silent mantra fails to block out their jeers and catcalls.  
  
He avoids entering the classroom until he can hear the teacher's footsteps echoing in the hall.  
  
He knows better than to make himself a sitting target.  
  
He learned that lesson the hard way.  
  
He enjoys his classes, particularly the science lessons.  
  
The biology teacher often tells him that he is the only reason that he doesn't quit the teaching profession. He calls him a symbol of hope, proof that there are still kids out there who are interested in education, that they are not all complete morons.  
  
Such remarks do not endear him to his classmates.  
  
His test scores are always the highest in the class. Teachers tell him that if there was a score above one hundred per cent, he would get it.  
  
His fellow students accuse him of raising the average, of throwing the grading curve, lowering their own scores.  
  
It is yet another item in the long list of grudges they hold against him.  
  
He knows better that to try to tell him that he doesn't mean to, that all he wants is to learn.  
  
He is torn between his desire to get along with his classmates and his fear of disappointing his parents and the teachers who have so much faith in him.  
  
In his heart he knows that, no matter what he does, his peer group will never accept him.  
  
His grades are all he has left.  
  
He spends hours studying every night, determined to achieve perfection.  
  
No score below three digits satisfies his own exacting standards.  
  
Ninety-nine makes him feel like an idiot, a disappointment, a failure.  
  
Adults call him a genius, a prodigy.  
  
It feels as if they are laying a curse upon him, as if it is a sentence he has to serve.  
  
Sometimes his teachers try to comfort him. They tell him not to worry, in ten years time he will be a successful self-made millionaire while his detractors will be flipping burgers and servicing his fleet of cars.  
  
Their consoling words don't make the gauntlet any easier to bear.  
  
"Geek!"  
  
"Nerd!"  
  
"Loser!"  
  
"Freak!"  
  
He knows now that the rhyme is a lie.  
  
/Sticks and stones *may* break my bones, but words will *always* hurt me./  
  
*  
  
THE END. 


End file.
